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The auditor general's report takes aim at rail safety, in particular “safety management systems,” an initiative that puts most of the responsibility on individual rail firms for the safety of their day-to-day operations.

The disaster in in Lac-Mégantic that killed 37 people thrust the issue of rail safety into the national spotlight.
(Paul Chiasson / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo)

Auditor general Michael Ferguson says “There are weaknesses in all aspects of how Transport Canada is overseeing rail safety systems in the companies.” (Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

OTTAWA —Transport Minister Lisa Raitt has issued an edict to top bureaucrats to improve rail safety after a new report uncovered “significant weaknesses” in Ottawa’s oversight of the country’s railways.

The critical conclusions prompted Raitt to put department officials on notice Tuesday that they had to do better.

“I’ve told Transport Canada officials that the public expect better of them,” Raitt said, according to a statement from her office.

The minister later said her comment to senior staff wasn’t meant to pass the buck but simply drive home the urgent need to make improvements.

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In an audit completed just days before the disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Que., thrust the issue of rail safety into the national spotlight, the auditor general found Transport Canada is failing in its responsibility to ensure rail companies across the country are operating safely.

The report takes aim at so-called “safety management systems,” an initiative that puts more responsibility on individual rail firms for the safety of their day-to-day operations while leaving Transport Canada in an oversight role to ensure these systems are working.

But 12 years after they were introduced, Transport Canada continues to struggle to implement the new model of safety oversight, auditor general Michael Ferguson said in his audit, released Tuesday.

“The transition is taking too long,” he told reporters. “There are weaknesses in all aspects of how Transport Canada is overseeing rail safety systems in the companies.”

“Whether it’s political will, whether it’s the way that people are putting it in place, they have to figure out what needs to be done from now to get that job finished,” he said.

The audit was completed at the end of June, just days before the tragic crash in Lac-Mégantic that saw a train of oil tanker cars tumble off the tracks in the centre of town, causing a blaze that killed 47 and destroyed much of the downtown core.

In the wake of that crash, Transport Canada faced questions about its oversight of rail safety and in particular the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic railway that owned the train.

According to Ferguson, there are many areas that need improvement after his audit team cited a lack of training for inspectors, bad management of the audit process, and poor record-keeping that failed to highlight areas of greatest risk.

“The department’s level of oversight was not sufficient to obtain assurance that federal railways have implemented adequate and effective safety management systems,” he noted.

“Transport Canada needs to address significant weaknesses in its oversight of safety management systems,” Ferguson wrote in his report.

He said the federal transport department has made only “limited progress” in making the shift from traditional oversight, through inspections, to the new approach, which requires vigorous oversight of the rail companies’ own safety management plans.

For example, he noted that in the three years ending March 2012, Transport Canada had done just 14 audits of railway safety management systems — just 26 per cent of what was required. Six audits were done at Canadian National and two at Canadian Pacific, which together carry 26 per cent of freight moved in Canada. However, during that same period, no audit was done on Via Rail, which moves more than four million passengers a year.

The department has instead being doing “focused” partial audits on known safety concerns but at that rate it would take years to ensure compliance of safety management systems, the report concludes The report does note that the number of rail accident has dropped over the last 10 years to 1,015 in 2012 from 1,332 in 2002.

The Toronto Star has also revealed that company-specific safety plans at the heart of these safety management systems — detailing training, practices, policies — are kept from public view. Because they are considered third-party information, there is no obligation to make such safety data public.

Responding to the audit Tuesday afternoon, Raitt said Transport Canada has “accelerated” a plan to address the recommendations, including the way inspectors assess the risk, timely and mandatory training for inspectors and managers.

“They’re going to determine whether the current workforce has the required skills and competencies,” Raitt said. “I will be closely following this plan to ensure its implementation.”

It’s not the first time the auditor general has flagged problems with safety management systems. In a 2008 report, the office identified similar concerns, saying that aviation inspectors lacked training in the new regime.

Tuesday’s report also accuses the department and industry of dragging their feet on long-identified safety improvements in areas such as trespassing, grade crossings and bridge safety.

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